In a wireless network or a radio communications network, wireless devices, also known as mobile stations, terminals and/or user equipments, UEs, communicate via a Radio Access Network, RAN, with one or more core networks. The radio access network covers a geographical area which may be divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a base station, e.g. a wireless access network node or a radio base station, RBS, node, which in some networks may also be called, for example, a “eNB”, “NodeB” or “eNodeB”. A cell may be a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the radio base station at a base station site or an antenna site in case the antenna and the radio base station are not collocated. Each cell may be identified by an identity within the local radio area, which is broadcast in the cell. Another identity identifying the cell uniquely in the whole mobile network is also broadcasted in the cell. One base station may have one or more cells. A cell may be downlink and/or uplink cell. The base stations communicate over the air interface operating on radio frequencies with the user equipment within range of the base stations.
A Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS, is a third generation mobile communication system, which evolved from the second generation, 2G, Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM. The UMTS terrestrial radio access network, UTRAN, is essentially a RAN using wideband code division multiple access, WCDMA, and/or High Speed Packet Access, HSPA, for user equipment. In a forum known as the Third Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP, telecommunications suppliers propose and agree upon standards for third generation networks and UTRAN specifically, and investigate enhanced data rate and radio capacity. In some versions of the RAN as e.g. in UMTS, several base stations may be connected, e.g., by landlines or microwave, to a controller node, such as a radio network controller, RNC, or a base station controller, BSC, which supervises and coordinates various activities of the plural base stations connected thereto. The RNCs are typically connected to one or more core networks.
Specifications for the Evolved Packet System, EPS, have been completed within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP, and this work continues in the coming 3GPP releases. The EPS comprises the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network, E-UTRAN, also known as the Long Term Evolution, LTE, radio access, and the Evolved Packet Core, EPC, also known as System Architecture Evolution, SAE, core network. E-UTRAN/LTE is a variant of a 3GPP radio access technology wherein the radio base station nodes are directly connected to the EPC core network rather than to RNCs. In general, in E-UTRAN/LTE the functions of a RNC are distributed between the radio base stations nodes, e.g. eNodeBs in LTE, and the core network. As such, the Radio Access Network, RAN, of an EPS has an essentially flat rather than hierarchical architecture comprising radio base station nodes without reporting to RNCs.
In a 3GPP system and in particular in an EPC/LTE system, access control and Radio Resource Management, RRM, are two mechanisms used in a sequence to prioritize a UE ability to send and receive data over the radio interface. In both mechanisms the success of the wireless device request depends on the load in RAN, specifically in the eNB, and the priority given when handling the UE request.
The Access Control mechanism refers to the ability to control how the UE to connect to the wireless access network node. This involves, for example in LTE access networks, a UE transmitting a Radio Resource Control, RRC, connection request to the eNB as part of the RRC connection establishment procedure. Examples of the methods used for access control are Access Class Barring, ACB, Extended Access Class Barring, EAB, and Application specific Congestion control for Data Communication, ACDC. In general, the priority used in the methods for access control is represented by access classes, such as in ACB and EAB, or by categories, such as in ACDC, both hardcoded in the USIM card holding subscriber information.
Once the UE has connected to the wireless access network node and gained access, RRM in RAN based on authorized QoS, e.g. Scheduling and Admission Control, refers to the decisions made by eNB, to serve the UE based on available RAN resources.
In 3GPP LTE Release 13, so called Suspend/Resume procedures are specified. The procedures provide for the RAN to instruct the UE to go to idle mode while storing the Contexts in the UE and in RAN. The UE requests to resume the Context, if it desires to transmit or if it is paged. Thus, RAN may execute admission control at the Resume request of the UE based on the stored context priority derived from the detailed QoS profiles authorized by the Core Network.
For instance, at an Attach or at a Service Request, access class barring (or similar mechanism) precedes a connection establishment. However, for access class barring, prioritization is not based on the authorized QoS of the core network. For the eNB on the other hand a detailed QoS profile is not available until the later phases of the procedures, which results in a reservation of the RAN resources until a full examination of the QoS info based on the Initial Context Setup message is completed. This can potentially end up with a release of the UE, if request is less important. Since the success of a UE request depends on a positive outcome of both access and admission control, in a high load situation, a UE may be prioritized during access control and later be denied to be admitted to resources by admission control, leading to a temporary waste of the resources. Alternatively, a UE that would be admitted by admission control may not be prioritized during access control, resulting in a poor quality of experience for prioritized connections.
Therefore, there is a need for improved handling/management of wireless network resources.